Riaz Haq writes this data-driven blog to provide information, express his opinions and make comments on many topics. Subjects include personal activities, education, South Asia, South Asian community, regional and international affairs and US politics to financial markets. For investors interested in South Asia, Riaz has another blog called South Asia Investor at http://southasiainvestor.blogspot.com and a YouTube video channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkrIDyFbC9N9evXYb9cA_gQ

Thursday, November 24, 2016

CS Wealth Report 2016: Average Pakistani 20% Richer Than Average Indian

Average Pakistani adult is 20% richer than an average Indian adult and the median wealth of a Pakistani adult is 120% higher than that of his or her Indian counterpart, according to Credit Suisse Wealth Report 2016. Average household wealth in Pakistan has grown 2.1% while it has declined 0.8% in India since the end of last year.

A November 2016 World Bank report says that Pakistan has successfully translated economic growth into the well-being of its poorest citizens. It says "Pakistan’s recent growth has been accompanied by a staggering fall in poverty".

Rising incomes of the poorest 20% in Pakistan since 2002 have enabled them to enhance their living standards by improving their diets and acquiring television sets, refrigerators, motorcycles, flush toilets, and better housing.

Another recent report titled "From Wealth to Well Being" by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) also found that Pakistan does better than India and China in translating GDP growth to citizens' well-being.

Using the old national poverty line of $1.90 (ICP 2011 PPP) , set in 2001, the percentage of people living in poverty fell from 34.7 percent in FY02 to 9.3 percent in FY14—a fall of more than 75 percent. Much of the socioeconomic progress reported by the World Bank since 2000 has occurred during President Musharraf's years in office from 2000-2007. It has dramatically slowed or stagnated since 2010.

Using the new 2016 poverty line of $3.50 (ICP 2011 PPP), 29.5 percent of Pakistanis as poor (using the latest available data from FY14). By back casting this line, the poverty rate in FY02 would have been about 64.3 percent.

Pakistan's new poverty line sets a minimum consumption threshold of Rs. 3,030 or $105 (ICP 2011 PPP) per person per month or $3.50 (ICP 2011 PPP) per person per day. This translates to between Rs. 18,000 and Rs. 21,000 per month for a household at the poverty line, allowing nearly 30% of the population or close to 60 million people to be targeted for pro-poor and inclusive development policies—thus setting a much higher bar for inclusive development.

Multi-dimensional Poverty Decline:

A UNDP report released in June 2016 said Pakistan’s MPI (Multi-dimensional poverty index) showed a strong decline, with national poverty rates falling from 55% to 39% from 2004 to 2015. MPI goes beyond just income poverty.

The Multidimensional Poverty Index uses a broader concept of poverty than income and wealth alone. It reflects the deprivations people experience with respect to health, education and standard of living, and is thus a more detailed way of understanding and alleviating poverty. Since its development by OPHI and UNDP in 2010, many countries, including Pakistan, have adopted this methodology as an official poverty estimate, complementing consumption or income-based poverty figures.

Rising Living Standards of the Poorest 20% in Pakistan:

According to the latest World Report titled "Pakistan Development Update: Making Growth Matter" released this month, Pakistan saw substantial gains in welfare, including the ownership of assets, the quality of housing and an increase in school enrollment, particularly for girls.

First, the ownership of relatively more expensive assets increased even among the poorest. In the bottom quintile, the ownership of motorcycles increased from 2 to 18 percent, televisions from 20 to 36 percent and refrigerators from 5 to 14 percent.

In contrast, there was a decline in the ownership of cheaper assets like bicycles and radios.

Housing quality in the bottom quintile also showed an improvement. The number of homes constructed with bricks or blocks increased while mud (katcha) homes decreased. Homes with a flushing toilet almost doubled in the bottom quintile, from about 24 percent in FY02 to 49 percent in FY14.

For the poorest, the share of expenditure devoted to milk and milk products, chicken, eggs and fish rose, as did the share devoted to vegetables and fruits.

In contrast, the share of cereals and pulses, which provide the cheapest calories, declined steadily between FY02 and FY14. Because foods like chicken, eggs, vegetables, fruits, and milk and milk products are more expensive than cereals and pulses, and have lower caloric content, this shift in consumption also increased the amount that people spent per calorie over time.

For the poorest quintile, expenditure per calorie increased by over 18 percent between FY02 and FY14. Overall, this analysis confirms that the decline in poverty exhibited by the 2001 poverty line is quite credible, and that Pakistan has done remarkably well overall in reducing monetary poverty based on the metric it set some 15 years ago, says the World Bank.

Summary:

In spite of Pakistan's many challenges on multiple fronts, the country has successfully translated its GDP growth into the well-being of its poorest citizens. "Pakistan’s recent growth has been accompanied by a staggering fall in poverty", says a November 2016 World Bank report. An earlier report by Boston Consulting Group reached a similar conclusion.

Majumdar: "If the median Baki is wealthier than our Hindoo counterpart why is: the hunger index worse for Bakiland than India (33.5 v/s 28.5 GHI score 2016, IFPRI) the average Baki living shorter than the Indian (66 v/s 68 WHO)"

There's considerable body of evidence that raises serious questions about the veracity of WHI & WHO data you quote.

For example:

1. Pakistanis body mass index is higher than that of Indians. Pakistanis are taller and weigh more in spite of similar genes as Indians.

2. A UNDP report released in June 2016 said Pakistan’s MPI (Multi-dimensional poverty index) showed a strong decline, with national poverty rates falling from 55% to 39% from 2004 to 2015. India's MPI is much higher than Pakistan's. MPI goes beyond just income poverty. The Multidimensional Poverty Index uses a broader concept of poverty than income and wealth alone. It reflects the deprivations people experience with respect to health, education and standard of living, and is thus a more detailed way of understanding and alleviating poverty. Since its development by OPHI and UNDP in 2010, many countries, including Pakistan, have adopted this methodology as an official poverty estimate, complementing consumption or income-based poverty figures.

3. Recent World Bank report released in June 2016 says rising incomes of the poorest 20% in Pakistan since 2002 have enabled them to enhance their living standards by improving their diets and acquiring television sets, refrigerators, motorcycles, flush toilets, and better housing.

Decline in poverty led to an increase in dietary diversity for all income groups.

For the poorest, the share of expenditure devoted to milk and milk products, chicken, eggs and fish rose, as did the share devoted to vegetables and fruits.

In contrast, the share of cereals and pulses, which provide the cheapest calories, declined steadily between FY02 and FY14. Because foods like chicken, eggs, vegetables, fruits, and milk and milk products are more expensive than cereals and pulses, and have lower caloric content, this shift in consumption also increased the amount that people spent per calorie over time.

For the poorest quintile, expenditure per calorie increased by over 18 percent between FY02 and FY14. Overall, this analysis confirms that the decline in poverty exhibited by the 2001 poverty line is quite credible, and that Pakistan has done remarkably well overall in reducing monetary poverty based on the metric it set some 15 years ago, says the World Bank.

Majumdar: "Are you implying that findings of multilateral agencies like FAO and WHO are less reliable than those of an I-banker? And why does UNDP's HDI consistently put Bakiland lower than India."

No, I'm not. What I am arguing is that you view and evaluate multiple data sources to reach your own conclusions.

For example, it is hard to believe that hunger is growing in Pakistan (as claimed by IFPRI) at a time when there is "staggering fall in poverty" as reported by the World Bank and UNDP.

It also makes no sense that malnutrition is increasing at a time when diets are experiencing significant improvement and diversity as seen in rising consumption of meat, chicken, dairy products, fruits and vegetables as reported by both private and public sources in Pakistan.

It also seems improbable that Pakistan HDI is lower than India's when India's MPI is so much worse than Pakistan's. This question of discrepancy has been answered OPHI's Sabina Alkire as follows:

Because the AF (Alkire & Foster) methodology is multidimensional, there is a chance it might be confused with theHuman Development Index (HDI), which aggregates across achievements in health, education, andstandard of living. In fact, the two measure very different things. The AF methodology (and its particularexample of the MPI) measures poverty: it identifies who is poor and ignores the data of the nonpoor. Incontrast the HDI is a welfare index based on three marginal distributions that combines the aggregatedimensional achievements of all people (not just the poor) into one overall score. While the HDI may belimited in terms of data, dimensions, and methodology, it has helped bring into view people’sachievements in non-monetary spaces, and made it possible for other categories of multidimensionalmeasures (such as poverty measures) to be envisioned.

India's official $ PPP is 10+ % better than Pakistan's $ PPP. In about 90% of Indian cities and villages, that power parity is over 25% better than Pakistan. It is so because India manufactures nearly everything they consume.

Shams: "India's official $ PPP is 10+ % better than Pakistan's $ PPP. In about 90% of Indian cities and villages, that power parity is over 25% better than Pakistan. It is so because India manufactures nearly everything they consume."

Let me see if I can help educate you little about the subject under discussion.

First, I hope you know the difference between income and wealth. The Credit Suisse report is about wealth, not income.

Wealth accumulates from part of the income that you do not spend on consumption. World Bank's International Comparisons Program (ICP 2011) shows that cost of living in Pakistan is lower than in India. And Pakistan's underground economy is larger than India's.

As to your claim that "India manufactures nearly everything they consume", let me help you with some facts here:

1. India's manufacturing value added per capita is about the same as Pakistan's. it still sits at a very low 142nd position terms of manufacturing value added per capita, according to the United Nations Industrial Development Organization's Industrial Development Report 2016. Pakistan's manufacturing value added is ranked 146th by the same report.

Here's an excerpt of a piece by Indian entrepreneur Jaithirth Rao published by Indian Express:

"Uday Kotak said a few months back, in the course of an interview, that he was amazed that in his new office in Mumbai, not one of the furniture or fixture items were made in India. My friend Rahul Bhasin conducted a similar exercise in his office in Delhi and discovered pretty much the same thing. The carpet is from China, the furniture is from Malaysia, the light fixtures are from China, the glass partition is from all places, Jebel Ali in the Middle East and so on. Kotak went on to add that even Ganesha statues are no longer made in India. They are imported from China."

India has an extraordinarily skewed wealth distribution. In the CS report it has 80 billionaires. Its ratio of billionaires to millionaires is the highest in the world, much higher than in the US or China. I wonder if there is even a single billionaire in Pakistan. I do think that in general the average Pakistani is better off than the average Indian, primarily because the lower half of the population in India lives in a squalor that just doesn't really exist in Pakistan. Some of this is due to its inherent stratification due to the discrimination faced by Muslims and Dalits and other lower caste Hindus. PAkistan's more homogeneous society (in terms of religion and living standard, it is not homogenous ethnically speaking) allows the vast majority at least a chance to get ahead.The quaitly of the data is poor, as CS acknowledges. On some measures India has a higher per capita income, but I think that is partially due to the fact that Pakistan has not rebased its GDP calculation in a long while. Is that going to happen soon, and will it have a big effect on the total GDP number?

nayyar ali: "I wonder if there is even a single billionaire in Pakistan. "

There's at least one living and working in Pakistan---Mian Mohammad Mansha---reportedly worth $2.5 billion. His fortune came from privatization of Muslim Commercial Bank (MCB).

Other billionaires, such as Shahid Khan and Anwar Pervez, are dual citizens who live outside Pakistan.

Some of Pakistan's politicians, including Sharif and Zardari, are alleged billionaires in US$.

nayyar ali: " Is that going to happen soon, and will it have a big effect on the total GDP number?"

It seems likely given the following excerpt from State Bank of Pakistan Annual Report 2014

"In terms of LSM growth, a number of sectors that are showing strong performance; (for example, fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector; plastic products; buses and trucks; and even textiles), are either under reported, or not even covered. The omission of such important sectors from official data coverage, probably explains the apparent disconnect between overall economic activity in the country and the hard numbers in LSM."

Economists have long argued that Pakistan's official GDP figures significantly understate real economic activity in terms of both production and consumption.

Pakistan has changed a lot since 2006 in terms of economy and demographics. The World Bank moved Pakistan from a low-income to middle-income country in 2007. Pakistan is much more urbanized and more middle class now than it was in 2006. Pakistan's large scale manufacturing (LSM) sector has changed to respond to meet the rising new product demands of the country's growing middle class consumers. Its time for Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) to conduct a new manufacturing census and Pakistan Census Bureau to do a population census to paint a more accurate picture of the country's demographics and economy now.

The wealth report is by no means should be followed like an financial bible. The Economist says(November 26th, 2016), "Unlike many studies of prosperity and inequality, this one counts household assets rather than income. The data are patchy, particularly at the bottom and top of the income scale. Furthermore, The Wealth Report 2016 also classifies "wealth data quality" of each country from very good to very poor.

The Wealth report indicates data from Pakistan is of poor quality while that from India it is of fair quality.

Sort Pal: "The Economist says(November 26th, 2016), "Unlike many studies of prosperity and inequality, this one counts household assets rather than income. The data are patchy, particularly at the bottom and top of the income scale. Furthermore, The Wealth Report 2016 also classifies "wealth data quality" of each country from very good to very poor. The Wealth report indicates data from Pakistan is of poor quality while that from India it is of fair quality."

First, it is called "Global Wealth Databook 2016" for a reason; it looks at wealth and not income.The two are distinct.

Second, The Economist does not dismiss as you are.

Third, no single data point or report can by itself be trusted unless it is corroborated by other data. That's why I shared the World Bank data about the assets owned by people the bottom quintile (20%) income group. It shows that the ownership of relatively more expensive assets increased even among the poorest. In the bottom quintile, the ownership of motorcycles increased from 2 to 18 percent, televisions from 20 to 36 percent and refrigerators from 5 to 14 percent.

IF YOU had only $2,220 to your name (adding together your bank deposits, financial investments and property holdings, and subtracting your debts) you might not think yourself terribly fortunate. But you would be wealthier than half the world’s population, according to this year’s Global Wealth Report by the Crédit Suisse Research Institute. If you had $71,560 or more, you would be in the top tenth. If you were lucky enough to own over $744,400 you could count yourself a member of the global 1% that voters everywhere are rebelling against.

Unlike many studies of prosperity and inequality, this one counts household assets rather than income. The data are patchy, particularly at the bottom and apex of the pyramid. But with some assumptions, the institute calculates that the world’s households owned property and net financial assets worth almost $256trn in mid-2016. That is about 3.4 times the world’s annual GDP. If this wealth were divided equally it would come to $52,819 per adult. But in reality the top tenth own 89% of it.

That lucky tenth now includes over 44m Chinese, about 4.4% of the country’s adult population. A far greater number (almost half of China’s adults) cluster in the next three deciles down. Closer to the bottom of the pyramid, there is a similar bulge of Indians in the second and third deciles (with wealth between $30 and $603). Below them, the bottom tenth is a peculiar mix. It is populated by poor countries, where many people have nothing, and rich ones, where people can own very much less than that. It includes a surprising number of Americans (over 21m), whose debts outweigh their assets. But most Americans are much better off. Over 40% belong to the top tenth of the global wealth distribution (and over 18m belong to the global 1%). Some of those railing against the global elite probably do not know they belong to it.

It also seems improbable that Pakistan HDI is lower than India's when India's MPI is so much worse than Pakistan's.

How about flipping the question around? Is it probable that MPI is so far worse for India than it is for Pakiland if its HDI is better? The answer is right out there. The MPI calculation you refer to was done for India on the basis of 2005-06 data while for Pakiland it has been updated for 2013. But HDI has been computed on the same baseline year for both countries.

Majumdar: "The MPI calculation you refer to was done for India on the basis of 2005-06 data while for Pakiland it has been updated for 2013. But HDI has been computed on the same baseline year for both countries"

Pakistan has always done better on MPI than India. As to using more recent data, it'll make little difference because the income poverty component of MPI would still be much worse for India. Here's the World Bank data on income poverty:

Below $1.90 PPP: Pakistan 7.9% India 21.2%

Below $3.10 PPP: Pakistan 43.6% India 58%

http://povertydata.worldbank.org/poverty/region/SAS

Income poverty is what reduces people's access to food, health care, education and sanitation in the absence of any real social safety net.

Planting of the 2017, mostly irrigated, ‘’rabi’’ (winter) wheat crop is currently underway and will continue until mid-December. Near-average irrigation water supplies in the main wheat-growing areas of Punjab and Sindh provinces are benefitting plantings and early crop development in these areas. However, below-normal rains hindered planting operations in the minor rainfed-producing ‘’barani areas’’, located in the northern parts of Punjab Province.

Current official forecasts put the 2017 wheat output at a record level of 26 million tonnes, 2 percent up from the 2016 bumper output. This forecast rests on expectations that adequate water availability in the main reservoirs will boost plantings, while the good supply of quality seeds, fertilizers and herbicides will increase average yields.

Above-average 2016 summer cereal crops estimated

Harvesting of the 2016 summer (monsoon) season maize and rice crops is almost complete. FAO estimates the 2016 paddy and maize outputs at 10.3 million tonnes and 5.2 million tonnes, respectively, slightly above the previous year’s production. This result follows generally favourable weather conditions during the cropping season, coupled with an adequate water supply for irrigation and good access to fertilizers and other basic inputs.

Wheat exports in the 2016/17 marketing year (May/April) are forecast to increase from the previous year’s low level to 800 000 tonnes, in line with the 2016 overall good output and large carryover stocks.

Prices of wheat and wheat flour strengthened in recent months

Prices of wheat and wheat flour, the country’s main staples, have strengthened in recent months, following seasonal patterns, but remained below their year-earlier levels owing to good availabilities following a bumper 2016 crop.

Overall, the food supply situation is stable following two consecutive years of good harvests and large carryover stocks of the main staples. However, food security concerns remain in some areas, particularly in Tharparkar District and northern Pakistan.

In Tharparkar District (southeastern Sindh Province) and the surrounding areas of Sindh Province, a below-average drought-affected cereal production for the third consecutive year, coupled with losses of small animals, especially sheep and goats, has aggravated food insecurity and caused acute malnutrition.

Food insecurity has been exacerbated by the lingering negative impact of the 2015 floods; the provinces of Sindh, Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were most affected. Official assessments reported the loss of lives and severe damage to housing, infrastructure and agriculture. Households in northern parts of the country have also not fully recovered from the impact of the earthquake in October 2015.

The Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, located in northern Pakistan, are still affected by the return process after the large scale displacement (312 000 families or around 1.9 million people) due to insurgency in FATA. According to OCHA estimates, as of October 2016, over 1.3 million refugees remained displaced in northern Pakistan. These populations rely mainly on humanitarian assistance, including food aid, healthcare and other necessities.

The government is in process of preparing a pilot project on National Zero Hunger and Family Farming Programme which would be implemented in most food insecure areas. A specially established National Zero Hunger Cell in Ministry of National Food Security and Research was tasked to prepare the pilot project before launching of larger National Zero Hunger Programme.Official sources on Monday said in order to initiate the process of preparation of the pilot programme, a national mapping exercise was jointly undertaken by World Food Programme (WFP), Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the concerned ministry to gain better understanding of ongoing programmes relating to school feeding, nutrition support, income generation and family farming support.The sources said during the mapping exercise it was agreed that provinces would be taken into confidence before finalization of the programme. The programme will be implemented in most food insecure areas, in each of the four provinces of the country, in coordination with provincial governments.The pilot project will help analyze the effects of the proposed intervention in each province and to incorporate lessons and experiences gathered into a more comprehensive programme.Answering a question regarding levels of hunger and malnutrition in the country, the sources said the last National Nutrition Survey (NNS) was conducted by Aga Khan University’s Division of Women and Child Health, Ministry of Health and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).Ministry of National Health Services is also planning to conduct a National Nutrition Survey in 2017-18 by which latest information will be available. It is also important to mention that during the last three years in Pakistan food items like wheat, rice, maize, potatoes, onion, mango, citrus; palm dates, milk, meat etc. were produced in surplus as per country requirement.The sources said for revitalization of agriculture, Federal government has taken some steps including Prime Minister’s Kissan Package, concessions of taxes and duties, reduction in prices of fertilizer, enhancement in target of agriculture credit and also guarantee scheme for small and marginalized farmers, reduction of cost of credit, concessional electricity tariff for Agriculture Tube Wells, concession of customs duty for Dairy, Livestock & Poultry Sectors.—APP

How will #Pakistan economy fare in 2017? #CPEC #IMF #SBPhttp://www.khaleejtimes.com/how-will-pakistan-fare-in-2017

Finance Minister Ishaq Dar is claiming that Pakistan's GDP growth will rise to even 5.7 per cent as compared to FY-16.

---

The SBP, the central bank, has just unveiled its SBP Annual Review - 2015-16, which sheds light on most aspects of the country's economy, and previews the microeconomic targets for FY-17 in the light of the actual performance in FY-16.

The GDP growth in FY-17 is set at 5.7 per cent, but the SBP expects it to a range between five and six per cent. "If a higher projection is achieved, it will so for the first time since 2007. It will also a signal that the economy has fundamentally moved up to a higher growth trajectory. The current indications, based on the first four months of FY-17, are that it may not happen because farm output is down and it is not likely to rise in whole of FY-17. The Large Scale Manufacturing industry, which showed a rise of just two per cent in July-September as compared to the target of the planned target of six per cent," said Dr Hafeez Pasha, the former Finance Minister of Pakistan, who currently heads Karachi-Pakistan based Institute of Business Administration (IBA).

With limited growth in sectors like industry, trade, exports and banking but construction and real estate going up, and if the present trends continue, "the GDP growth rate is unlikely to exceed four per cent. This is substantially below the SBP projection of five to six per cent growth rate," Dr Pasha said.

The government's inflation rate target is six per cent while the SBP projects it at 4.5 to 5.6 per cent in FY-17. The actual inflation in the first four months, July-October, it was four per cent. "As such, the inflation rate projection by SBP of some increase in the rate of inflation appears to be valid," Dr Pasha also said.

The SBP expects the current account deficit in the range of 0.5 to 1.5 per cent of the GDP in FY-17, while the government puts it at around 1.5 per cent. This optimism is based on the revival of exports by five per cent. In fact, exports in the first four months of this fiscal have declined by six per cent and home remittances sent by Pakistanis working overseas are down by one per cent. The current account deficit has widened by 6.3 per cent, and already has reached 0.6 per cent of GDP.

But, where is progress and prosperity ending up? This stark question stems from the independent research and analysis that clearly confirmed this week that poverty in Pakistan is, in fact, rising, despite all claims by the government and multilateral institutes about economic progress and growth.

Christine Lagarde, managing director of the IMF, endorsed the official view of the pro-poor analysts, during her visit to Pakistan this week. But, addressing bankers and economists, Lagarde asked Pakistan to do more for the poor. She said: "Although more than 1.5 million poor households are now benefiting from targeted social assistance than three years ago, more efforts are required to end the agonies of the poor."

"Applauding other good efforts of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's government, Lagarde pointed out that power outages have gradually decreased and the financial performance of the power sector is strengthening. A country-wide strategy to improve the business climate is being implemented," she said at a joint press conference with Finance Minister Ishaq Dar. She also urged Pakistan that "corruption or the perception of corruption can only be eradicated through honesty, transparency and accountability."

Not everyone buys the claim that #India's cash ban will make it more #digital. #Demonitization #Modi http://bloom.bg/2g0gx2U via @markets

After first selling India’s cash ban as a strike against corruption, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has since pushed a tantalizing side benefit.

The move to eradicate 500 rupee ($7.3) and 1,000 rupee notes, representing 86 percent of currency in circulation, would also force hundreds of millions of cash-dependent Indians to use more online payments and bank accounts. That could be a key growth driver in years to come, boosting tax receipts as the black economy is turned white and increasing bank deposits that can be used for lending.

Deepak Kumar, a 22-year-old security guard who earns 7,500 rupees a month, tried to open an account with a New Delhi branch of the State Bank of India after receiving his salary in old notes. The bank refused, telling him to return in January, he said.

“They said we’re only looking after our customers, we don’t have time to add new customers,” Kumar said, adding he wouldn’t try to open an bank account again. “This cashless thing is good for big people, but for small people like us, it doesn’t mean anything."

Such anecdotes are fueling doubts the demonetization move will lead to a substantial shift to online or mobile payments, particularly among the vast population of poor Indians who lack the necessary bank accounts.

India’s Cash Chaos by the Numbers: Guide to Banknote Revamp

Cash dependent

Problem is, while e-commerce is booming, India remains one of the most cash-dependent countries in the world.

Just over half of the nation’s adults have bank accounts, a precursor to using digital payments. Roughly 98 percent of all transactions are in cash, with 11 percent of consumers using a debit card in 2015, while most retailers don’t accept cards.

In the days after Modi’s Nov. 8 announcement, digital payment companies such as Paytm Mobile Solutions Pvt. Ltd. lauded the move in newspaper ads and said digital payments usage was up. But most new customers will likely be wealthier urbanites, said Saksham Khosla, a research analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace India.

“I’m very doubtful that this will lead to any meaningful financial inclusion," Khosla. "It does seem a little tacked on. They’re trying to find more and more uses for demonetization than may have originally been intended."

Flip-Flops: U-Turns Blight Modi’s Cash Ban, Leaving Indians Outraged

Part of the problem is the poor penetration of banks in India’s villages -- there are only 18 ATMs per 100,000 citizens in India, according to the World Bank, compared to 129 in Brazil. Additionally, just 22 percent of Indians use the Internet “at least occasionally” and only 17 percent have a smartphone, according to a Pew Research Center report.

Theoretically, by having a large amount of canceled banknotes going unredeemed the Indian government could essentially pocket the balance, which was estimated to be as high as 21% of the currency being recalled — or roughly $45 billion.

“Now it is not being explicitly stated — and in some cases they are going to deny it — but if a certain amount of cash does not come back then the central bank no longer has to account for that money,” said Arpan Nangia, the head of the India desk for HSBC’s commercial banking division. “So, for example, if a billion dollars does not come back then it's like a billion dollar profit for the central bank.”

Unfortunately for Modi and India’s central bank, this payday never materialized. As of now, over 82.5% of the recalled notes have been turned in, and it is estimated that by the time the redemption period is over on December 30th essentially all nullified notes will have been collected — white and black alike.

How the black market was able to take such large amounts of black money and redeem it via the demonetization program is not yet fully understood. Some theories have it that large amounts of previously inactive bank accounts were utilized or money was laundered via various tax-exempt entities. India’s Enforcement Directorate is currently investigating bank branches throughout the country.

However, India also offered an amnesty program for black market players, where the government would accept illicit cash at a 50% tax, and how much of the recovered notes were part of this program is currently unknown.

That said, all the “black money” that Modi and Company were attempting to wipe out may never have existed in the first place. Prior to this recent wave of demonetization, various studies have indicated that only 6% or so of India’s black market wealth is actually kept in cash. In 2012, India’s Central Board of Direct Taxes came out and publicly advised against demonetization on the grounds that most of country’s illicit wealth is kept in real estate, bullion, and jewelry — not in 500 and 1,000 rupee banknotes.

Hundreds of thousands of Indian construction workers have returned home since Prime Minister Narendra Modi abolished high-denomination banknotes, leaving some building sites across the country facing costly delays.

A month after Modi's shock move to take away 86 percent of cash in circulation to crush the shadow economy, the growing labor shortage threatens to slow a recovery in India's construction industry, which accounts for 8 percent of gross domestic product and employs 40 million people.

Work at SARE Homes' residential projects, spanning six cities, has slowed dramatically as migrant workers, who are out of cash and have no bank accounts to draw from, have little choice but to return to their villages.

"Construction work at all projects has slowed down in a big way," managing director Vineet Relia told Reuters.

Property enquiries, meanwhile, have slumped by 80 percent around the Indian capital since the cash crackdown, according to property portal 99acres.

Getamber Anand, president of Indian builders' association CREDAI, said projects nationwide had been hit, and estimated that roughly half of the migrant workforce, numbering in the low millions, had left for home.

Road developers have also reported a slowdown as they struggle to find sufficient labor.

The exodus shows little sign of reversing, risking damage to construction activity and the wider economy into 2017, despite Modi's assurances that hardships from his radical "demonetization" should be over by the end of the year.

The disruption to building raises doubts about the Reserve Bank of India's view that the impact on the economy would be transitory. The central bank held interest rates on Wednesday despite calls for action.

NO BANK ACCOUNT

Modi's gamble is that the majority of workers will be compelled to open a bank account as sub-contractors refuse to pay in cash, bringing them into the formal economy and expanding the country's low tax base.

That may happen eventually, but for now, millions of workers who depend on daily wages for food and shelter are struggling. Many have never held a bank account, and even if they wanted one, some do not have the necessary documents to do so.

At a construction site in Gurugram, a satellite city near Delhi, worker numbers have halved to 100. The site manager received a government circular on Nov. 25 saying every worker's wage should be paid into a bank, a message relayed to each contractor.

Biseshwar Yadav, a 36-year-old migrant laborer from the northeastern state of Bihar, worries about arranging documents to open an account and the cost of making regular trips to the bank.

Standing in the largely deserted worker housing colony opposite the unfinished 20-storey blocks of flats he had been building, Yadav said that with no salary, he was surviving on $89 borrowed from a local shopkeeper to pay for food.

Some laborers back in their villages are reluctant to return. Duryodhan Majhi, 38, traveled to his eastern state of Odisha after his employer in Secunderabad ran out of cash to pay his $4.4 daily wage.

"We keep moving from city to city in search of work. This new order would mean opening a new bank account every time we change cities. How and when will we work then?" he said, adding he would seek farm work.

#India tops the world slavery chart with 18.4 million #Indians (1.4% of population) held in #slavery . http://www.indonesia-investments.com/news/todays-headlines/global-slavery-index-2016-what-about-slavery-in-indonesia/item6885 …

India tops the world slavery charts with 18.4 million slaves followed by China's 3.4 million and Pakistan's 2.1 million.

In terms of percentages, North Korea tops with 4.37% of population in slavery followed by Uzbekistan's 3.97% and India's 1.4%.

The number of modern slaves (45.8 million according to the 2016 Global Slavery Index) is 28 percent higher than the number that was reported in the 2014 edition. However, this difference is mainly caused by a different methodology and data compiling process applied during research. The 2016 index is based on 42,000 interviews in 25 nationsCambodia is the country with the highest amount of modern slaves in the Southeast Asian region. According to the 2016 Global Slavery Index 1.6 percent of the Cambodian population is victim of slavery. However, in absolute terms, Indonesia leads the ranking in Southeast AsiaCombined, there are 26.6 million victims of slavery living in India, China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Uzbekistan. Together, these five countries account for 58 percent of total global slaveryThe Walk Free Foundation is an Australia-based human rights groupMost modern slaves - nearly two-thirds - can be found in Asian countries. This is attributed to the huge number of people living in Asia, while this continent is also well integrated into the global supply chains

India has been ranked 60th among 79 developing economies, below neighbouring China and Pakistan, in the inclusive development index, according to a WEF report. WEF’s ‘Inclusive Growth and Development Report 2017’, released today, said that most countries are missing important opportunities to raise economic growth and reduce inequality at the same time because the growth model and measurement tools that have guided policymakers for decades require significant readjustment.

Lithuania tops the list of 79 developing economies that also features Azerbaijan and Hungary at second and third positions, respectively. While India is placed at the 60th spot, many of the neighbouring nations are ahead in the rankings. China is ranked at the 15th position, Nepal (27th), Bangladesh (36th) and Pakistan (52nd).

The Inclusive Development Index (IDI) is based on 12 performance indicators. In order to provide a more complete measure of economic development than GDP growth alone, the index has three pillars — Growth and Development, Inclusion and Intergenerational Equity, and Sustainability.

This Is Just How Unequal is #India with top 1% Owning 58% of Wealth. #Modi #BJP http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2017/01/17/this-is-just-how-unequal-india-is/ … via @WSJIndia

The richest 1% of Indians hold 58% of the country’s total wealth, according to Oxfam India.

The stark inequality in India is worse than the global data put out by the organization, which show that the richest 1% have more than 50% of the total world wealth, Oxfam said.

The anti-poverty advocacy group released a report, “An Economy for the 99%” this week to coincide with the meeting of some of the world’s wealthiest business leaders and most powerful policymakers in Davos, Switzerland.

It said recently improved data on the distribution of wealth, particularly in countries like India and China, indicate that the poorest half of the world has less wealth was previously thought. Oxfam singled out India repeatedly in the report.

It said that companies are increasingly driven to pay higher returns to their shareholders. In India, the amount of profits corporations share with shareholders is as high as 50% and growing rapidly, the report said.

The report said the annual share dividends paid by from Zara’s parent company to Amancio Ortega – the world’s second richest man – are equal to around 800,000 times the annual wage of a worker employed by a garment factory in India.

Oxfam said that the combined wealth of India’s 57 billionaires is equivalent to that of the country’s poorest 70%.

“India is hitting the global headlines for many reasons, but one of them is for being one of the most unequal countries in the world with a very high and sharply rising concentration of income and wealth,” Nisha Agarwal, chief executive of Oxfam said in a statement.

Oxfam said India should introduce an inheritance tax and raise its wealth levies as well as increasing public spending on health and education. It said it should end the era of tax havens and crack down on rich people and corporations avoiding tax.

The rising number of its billionaires masks #India’s widening income #inequality. #Modi #BJP https://qz.com/1070450 via @qzindia

India is staring at a staggering income-inequality crisis.A research paper published by French economist Thomas Piketty and Lucas Chancel—based on the latest income tax data—suggests that inequality in India may be at its highest level since 1922, when India introduced the income tax.The share of national income held by the top 1% of the country’s population has increased dramatically, particularly since the 1980s, the economists say in their paper published on Sept. 05 (pdf).

“The top 1% of earners captured less than 21% of total income in the late 1930s, before dropping to 6% in the early 1980s and rising to 22% today,” the paper says.Piketty is widely recognised for his work on income inequality, particularly through his bestselling book Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Chancel is the co-director of the World Inequality Lab and of the World Wealth & Income Database (WID.world) at the Paris School of Economics.Their study shows that income inequality was the lowest in the 1970s and 1980s, a period when India was still a government-controlled economy and its GDP growth was quite low.“Over the 1951-1980 period, the bottom 50% group captured 28% of total growth, and incomes of this group grew faster than the average, while (the) top 0.1% incomes decreased,” their paper says. “Over the 1980-2014 period, the situation was reversed; the top 0.1% of earners captured a higher share of total growth than the bottom 50% (12% vs. 11%), while the top 1% received a higher share of total growth than the middle 40% (29% vs. 23%).”

Last year, a report by Credit Suisse Research Institute said that the top 1% of the country’s population held 58.4% of its wealth, up from 53% in 2015. Within the BRICS group, only Russia’s wealthy controlled more of their country’s wealth. Since 2010, India has added a billionaire every 33 days and Indians’ share in the global billionaires’ club has grown from 1% to 5% over the last 20 years.Meanwhile, Piketty has also reiterated his demand for more transparency in sharing income tax data. Access to data is crucial in measuring inequality and understanding the distribution of wealth. India used to publish the All India Income Tax Statistics until 2000. In 2016, the income tax department released tax tabulations for the period between 2012 and 2014.

BBC News - #Inequality in #India is the highest level in 92 years. Top 1% take 22% of income. Top 1% own 58% wealthhttp://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-41198638#

New research by French economists Lucas Chancel and Thomas Piketty, author of Capital, the 2013 bestselling book on capitalism and increasing inequality, clearly points to this conclusion.They studied household consumption surveys, federal accounts and income tax data from 1922 - when the tax was introduced in India - to 2014.The data shows that the share of national income accruing to the top 1% of wage earners is now at its highest level since Indians began paying income tax.The economists say the top 1% of the earners captured less than 21% of the total income in the late 1930s, before dropping to 6% in the early 1980s and rising to 22% today. India, in fact, comes out as a country with one of the highest increase in top 1% income share concentration over the past 30 years," they say.

To be sure, India's economy has undergone a radical transformation over the last three decades.Up to the 1970s, India was a tightly regulated, straitlaced economy with socialist planning. Growth crawled (3.5% per year), development was weak and poverty endemic.Some easing of regulation, decline in tax rates and modest reforms led to growth picking up in the 1980s, trundling at around 5% a year. This was followed by some substantial reforms in the early 1990s after which the economy grew briskly, nudging close to double digits in the mid-2000s.

Growth has slowed substantially since then, but India still remains one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. The ongoing slowdown - growth was 5.7% in the April-June quarter, the slowest pace in three years - largely triggered by feeble demand, a controversial cash ban, declining private investment and weak credit growth, is a cause for concern.And the need for fast-paced growth, according to Nobel Prize winning economist Amartya Sen, is "far from over since India, after two decades of rapid growth, is still one of the poorest countries in the world".From their latest work on income inequality, Lucas Chancel and Thomas Piketty contend that there has been a "sharp increase in wealth concentration from 1991 to 2012, particularly after 2002". Also, they conclude, India has only been really shining for the top 10% of the population - roughly 80 million people in 2014 - rather than the middle 40%.The economists plan to release the first World Inequality Report, produced by a network of more than 100 researchers in December, where they will compare India's inequality with other countries and suggest ways to tackle it.Striking transitionThey agree that unequal growth over a period of time is not specific to India, but market economies are not bound to be unequal. India's case is striking in the fact that it is the country with the highest gap between the growth of the top 1% and that of the full population. Incomes of those at the very top have actually grown at a faster pace than in China.The economists contend that the growth strategy pursued by successive governments has led to a sharp increase in inequality. China also liberalised and opened up after 1978, and experienced a sharp income growth as well as a sharp rise in inequality. This rise was however stabilised in the 2000s and is currently at a lower level than India.In Russia, the move from a communist to a market economy was "swift and brutal" and today has a similar level of inequality to India."This shows that there are different strategies to transit from a highly regulated economy to a liberalised one. In the arrays of possible pathways, India pursued a very unequal way but could probably have chosen another path," Dr Chancel told me.

Rising inequality is a global phenomenon. Oxfam’s briefings paper ‘An economy for the 99%’ reports only eight men today have the same wealth as 3.6 billion of the world’s population. In the last three decades seven out of 10 people living in a country have been facing inequality. Also the report mentions that in the next 25 years, the world will have its first trillionaire.

Besides this, every year economically stagnated countries cost $1,000 billion in the shape of corporate tax evasions. This huge sum can provide education to 124 million children and prevent the deaths of at least six million children globally. On the other hand, global inequality has devastating consequences for low-income countries like Pakistan.

The per capita income of Pakistan is $1,629. Poor families can bear the cost of food, health, shelter, education and other fundamental needs for a year in the country. Meanwhile, Bangladesh — a young country — has seen an increase of up to $1,602 in its per capita income.Oxfam’s another report titled Commitment to Reducing Inequality (CRI) ranks Pakistan at number 139 out of 152 countries. In spending on education, health and social protection, it is ranked on 146; progressive taxation is ranked at number 98 and labour rights is ranked at number 118.

According to development experts of Pakistan, between 1998-99 and 2013-14 consumption-based poverty fell from 57.9 per cent to 29.5 per cent. Multidimensional poverty that comprises education, health and living standards dropped from 55.2 per cent to 38.8 per cent between 2004-5 and 2014-15. In addition, during 2013-14, the Gini coefficient was 0.41 while in the years 1987-88 it was 0.35. Besides, the richest 20 per cent in Pakistan spend seven times more than the poorest 20 per cent.

Currently, our country is on the trajectory of high economic deficit. This has caused 35 per cent of the people to live below the poverty line, around 22.4 million children are out of school and 45 per cent are stunted. Moreover, women’s unpaid domestic work is not measured in any data. They are not paid equal wages and around 63 per cent youth spends their life impractically.

Income and wealth inequality in Pakistan is from top to bottom. Only 22 persons in the country have billions of wealth and reserves. The rest spend their life in hunger and poverty. Education and health infrastructures are on the verge of collapse. Institutions are rotten. Moral and ethical values are decaying.

Civil society organisations, public-sector organisations and INGOs in Pakistan are working more on issues like poverty, gender disparity, water, food, rights, etc. However, so far the root cause of all these issues — inequality — is untouched and undebated.

Undoubtedly inequality is a highly political debate, as it is entrenched in government policies and institutions. However, it needs to be advocated by people, civil society, policymakers and parliamentarians to initiate discourse in the country.

Inequality needs to be controlled now. The CRI index shows that some African countries through spending on education, health and social protection have controlled inequality. The government needs to increase spending on education, health and social protection, and provide equal labour wages for both men and women. The government should revamp and reform the taxation system to bring progressive and just tax systems.

For all the talk of wanting to tap the middle class, no firm moving into India thinks it is targeting the middle of the income distribution. India’s mean GDP per head is just $1,700, and 80% of the population makes less than that. Adjust for purchasing-power parity by factoring in the cheaper cost of goods and services in India and you can bump the mean up to $6,600. But that is less than half the figure for China (see chart 2) and a quarter of that for Russia. What is more, foreign companies have to take their money out of India at market exchange rates, not adjusted ones.

Defining the middle class anywhere is tricky. India’s National Council of Applied Economic Research has used a cut-off of 250,000 rupees of annual income, or about $10 a day at market rates. Thomas Piketty and Lucas Chancel of the Paris School of Economics found in a recent study that one in ten Indian adults had an annual income of more than $3,150 in 2014. That leaves only 78m Indians making close to $10 a day.

Meagre market

Even adjusting for the lower cost of living, that is hardly a figure to set marketers’ heartbeats racing. The latest iPhone, which costs $1,400 in India, represents five month’s pay for an Indian who just makes it into the top 10% of earners. And such consumers are not making up through growing numbers what they lack in individual spending power. The proportion making around $10 a day hardly shifted between 2010 and 2016.

Another gauge is whether people can afford the more basic material goods they crave. For Indians, that typically means a car or scooter, a television, a computer, air conditioning and a fridge. A government survey in 2012 found that under 3% of all Indian households owned all five items. The median household had no more than one. How many of them will be anywhere near able to buy an iPhone or a pair of Levi’s if they cannot afford a TV set?

To get in the top 1% of earners, an Indian needs to make just over $20,000. Adjusted for purchasing-power parity, that is a comfortable income, equating to over $75,000 in America. But in terms of being able to afford goods sold at much the same price across the world, whether a Netflix subscription or Nike trainers, more than 99% of the Indian population are in the same league as Americans that count as below the poverty line (around $25,000 for a family of four), points out Rama Bijapurkar, a marketing consultant.

The top 1% of Indians, indeed, are squeezing out the rest. They earn 22% of the entire income pool, according to Mr Piketty, compared with 14% for China’s top 1%. That is largely because they have captured nearly a third of all national growth since 1980. In that period India is the country with the biggest gap between the growth of income for the top 1% and the growth of income for the population as a whole. At the turn of the century, the richest 10% of Indians made 40% of national income, about the same as the 40% below them. But far from becoming a middle class, the latter’s share of income then slumped to under 30%, while those at the top went on to control over half of all income (see chart 3).

Hold your elephants. The Indian middle class conjured up by the marketers and consultants scarcely exists. Firms peddling anything much beyond soap, matches and phone-credit are targeting a minuscule slice of the population (see article). The top 1% of Indian adults, a rich enclave of 8m inhabitants making at least $20,000 a year, equates to roughly Hong Kong in terms of population and average income. The next 9% is akin to central Europe, in the middle of the global wealth pack. The next 40% of India’s population neatly mirrors its combined South Asian poor neighbours, Bangladesh and Pakistan. The remaining half-billion or so are on a par with the most destitute bits of Africa. To be sure, global companies take the markets of central Europe seriously. Plenty of fortunes have been made there. But they are no China.

Worse, the chances of India developing a middle class to match the Middle Kingdom’s are being throttled by growing inequality. The top 1% of earners pocketed nearly a third of all the extra income generated by economic growth between 1980 and 2014, according to new research from economists including Thomas Piketty. The well-off are ten times richer now than in 1980; those at the median have not even doubled their income. India has done a good job at getting those earning below $2 a day (at purchasing-power parity) to $3, but it has not matched other countries’ records in getting those on $3 a day to earning $5, those at $5 a day to $10, and so on. Middle earners in countries at India’s stage of development usually take more of the gains from growth. Eight in ten Indians cite inequality as a big problem, on a par with corruption.

The reasons for this failure are not mysterious. Decades of statist intervention meant that when a measure of liberalisation came in the early 1990s, only a few were able to benefit. The workforce is woefully unproductive—no surprise given the abysmal state of India’s education system, which churns out millions of adults equipped only for menial work. Its graduates go on to toil in small or micro-enterprises, operating informally; these “employ” 93% of all Indians. The great swell of middle-class jobs that China created as it became the workshop to the world is not to be found in India, because turning small businesses into productive large ones is made nigh-on impossible by bureaucracy. The fact that barely a quarter of women work—a share that has seen a precipitous decline in the past decade—only makes matters worse.

Good policy can do an enormous amount to improve prospects. However, hope should be tempered by realism. India is blessed with a deeply entrenched democratic system, but that is no shield against poor decisions. The sudden and brutal “demonetisation” of the economy in 2016 was meant to target fat cats, but ended up hurting everybody. And the path to prosperity walked by China, where manufacturing produced the jobs that pushed up incomes, is narrowing as automation limits opportunities for factory work.

All of which means that companies need to deal with the India that exists today rather than the one they wish to emerge. A strategy of waiting for Indians to develop a taste for products that the global middle class indulges in—cars as income per head crosses one threshold, foreign holidays when it crosses the next—may lead to decades of frustration. Only 3% of Indians have ever been on an aeroplane; only one in 45 owns a car or lorry. If nearly 300m Indians count as “middle class”, as HSBC has proclaimed, some of them make around $3 a day.

India's Richest 1% Cornered 73% Of Wealth Generated Last Year: Oxfam SurveyBesides, 67 crore Indians comprising the population's poorest half saw their wealth rise by just 1 per cent, as per the survey released by the international rights group Oxfam.

Besides, 67 crore Indians comprising the population's poorest half saw their wealth rise by just 1 per cent, as per the survey released by the international rights group Oxfam hours before the start of the annual congregation of the rich and powerful from across the world in this resort town.

The situation appears even grimmer globally, where 82 per cent of the wealth generated last year worldwide went to the 1 per cent, while 3.7 billion people that account for the poorest half of population saw no increase in their wealth.

The annual Oxfam survey is keenly watched and is discussed in detail at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting where rising income and gender inequality is among the key talking points for the world leaders.

Last year's survey had showed that India's richest 1 per cent held a huge 58 per cent of the country's total wealth higher than the global figure of about 50 per cent.

This year's survey also showed that the wealth of India's richest 1 per cent increased by over Rs. 20.9 lakh crore during 2017 -- an amount equivalent to total budget of the central government in 2017-18, Oxfam India said.

The report titled 'Reward Work, Not Wealth', Oxfam said, reveals how the global economy enables wealthy elite to accumulate vast wealth even as hundreds of millions of people struggle to survive on poverty pay."2017 saw an unprecedented increase in the number of billionaires, at a rate of one every two days. Billionaire wealth has risen by an average of 13 per cent a year since 2010 -- six times faster than the wages of ordinary workers, which have risen by a yearly average of just 2 per cent," it said.

In India, it will take 941 years for a minimum wage worker in rural India to earn what the top paid executive at a leading Indian garment firm earns in a year, the study found.

In the US, it takes slightly over one working day for a CEO to earn what an ordinary worker makes in a year, it added.

Citing results of the global survey of 120,000 people surveyed in 10 countries, Oxfam said it demonstrates a groundswell of support for action on inequality and nearly two-thirds of all respondents think the gap between the rich and the poor needs to be urgently addressed.

With Prime Minister Narendra Modi attending the WEF meeting in Davos, Oxfam India urged the Indian government to ensure that the country's economy works for everyone and not just the fortunate few.

It asked the government to promote inclusive growth by encouraging labour-intensive sectors that will create more jobs; investing in agriculture; and effectively implementing the social protection schemes that exist.

The survey respondents in countries like the US, UK and India also favoured 60 per cent pay cut for CEOs.

The key factors driving up rewards for shareholders and corporate bosses at the expense of workers' pay and conditions, Oxfam said, include erosion of workers' rights; excessive influence of big business over government policymaking; and the relentless corporate drive to minimise costs in order to maximise returns to shareholders.

About India, it said the country added 17 new billionaires last year, taking the total number to 101. The Indian billionaires' wealth increased to over Rs. 20.7 lakh crore -- increasing during last year by Rs. 4.89 lakh crore, an amount sufficient to finance 85 per cent of the all states' budget on health and education.

#Pakistan has the highest intergenerational income #mobility and the lowest #inequality among emerging economies. #WEF2018 #Davos https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/01/economist-plan-to-heal-fractured-societies/ …

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I am the Founder and President of PakAlumni Worldwide, a global social network for Pakistanis, South Asians and their friends. I also served as Chairman of the NEDians Convention 2007. In addition to being a South Asia watcher, an investor, business consultant and avid follower of the world financial markets, I have more than 25 years experience in the hi-tech industry. I have been on the faculties of Rutgers University and NED Engineering University and cofounded two high-tech startups, Cautella, Inc. and DynArray Corp and managed multi-million dollar P&Ls. I am a pioneer of the PC and mobile businesses and I have held senior management positions in hardware and software development of Intel’s microprocessor product line from 8086 to Pentium processors. My experience includes senior roles in marketing, engineering and business management. I was recognized as “Person of the Year” by PC Magazine for my contribution to 80386 program. I have an MS degree in Electrical engineering from the New Jersey Institute of Technology.
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